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Making international phone calls from outside the U.S. used to be difficult, even perilous at times. Years ago, I tried to call my girlfriend from a college town in Venezuela. Back then, most international calls could originate only from the local office of the telephone company in the country you were visiting. As I neared the office, I noticed a number of agitated students. Overturned trash cans were everywhere, and tiresand even entire carsburned merrily away. The telephone office was closed, and I beat a hasty retreat, smiling at the rioters as I backed out of town.

Nowadays, only your wallet is at risk when you make phone calls from abroad. Many mobile-phone users can place calls from around the world, and local pay-as-you-go phones are easy to obtain abroad. But the prices are outrageous. It's not uncommon to spend $2 a minute to call local numbers in Europe with a U.S. phone, and dialing the States can be even pricier.

I recently spent eight days in Europe on business, visiting France, Greece, and Germany. I knew I'd be calling home a lot, to speak to my family and to our office. Adding it up, it seemed I'd be spending $500 or more on phone charges. Luckily, there were cheaper alternatives. Bill Machrone recently wrote about his experiences with two PC-based VoIP services, Skype and Gizmo Project. Both are ideal for computer-to-computer calling, but can also be used to keep in touch cheaply while traveling, even if you're calling a standard telephone number. With a decent Internet connection, you can call around the world for around 2 cents a minute.

I decided to try three other servicesYahoo!'s Dialpad, Net2Phone, and WebPhonethat promise PC-to-phone calls worldwide. Alas, except for WebPhone, their rates averaged at least twice as much as Skype's and Gizmo's.

Still, that was far cheaper than using my cell phone. I installed the five services on my notebook and packed a Plantronics headset. The day before I left, I created accounts with each of the five and purchased a prepaid number of dial-out minutes, ranging from $10 at Gizmo to $25 at Net2Phone.Continue reading

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